The small craft, two of them towing the quarter boats, were beating out towards the Sutherland where she lay hove-to awaiting them, and the landing party was coming down the cliff face again and forming up on the beach. Lingering groups indicated that the wounded were being brought down. All these necessary delays seemed to stretch the anticlimax into an eternity. A bellowing roar from the battery and a fountain of earth and smoke—momentarily like those volcanoes at whose foot the Lydia had anchored last commission—told that the magazine had been fired. Now at last the launch and the long boat were pulling back to the ship, and Hornblower’s telescope, trained on the sternsheets of the long boat, revealed Bush sitting there, alive and apparently well. Even then, it was a relief to see him come rolling aft, his big craggy face wreathed in smiles, to make his report.

“The Frogs bolted out of the back door as we came in at the front,” he said. “They hardly lost a man. We lost—”

Hornblower had to nerve himself to listen to a pitiful list. Now that the excitement was over he felt weak and ill, and it was only by an effort that he was able to keep his hands from trembling. And it was only by an effort that he could make himself smile and mouth out words of commendation first to the men whom Bush singled out for special mention and then to the whole crew drawn up on the maindeck. For hours he had been walking the quarterdeck pretending to be imperturbable, and now he was in the throes of the reaction. He left it to Bush to deal with the prizes, to allot them skeleton crews and send them off to Port Mahon, while without a word of excuse he escaped below to his cabin. He had even forgotten that the ship had been cleared for action, so that in his search for privacy he had to sit in his hammock chair at the end of the stern gallery, just out of sight from the stern windows, while the men were replacing the bulkheads and securing the guns. He lay back, his arms hanging and his eyes closed, with the water bubbling under the counter below him and the rudder pintles groaning at his side. Each time the ship went about as Bush worked her out to make an offing his head sagged over to the opposite shoulder.

What affected him most was the memory of the risks he had run; at the thought of them little cold waves ran down his back and legs. He had been horribly reckless in his handling of the ship—only by the greatest good fortune was she not now a dismasted wreck, with half her crew killed and wounded, drifting on to a lee shore, with an exultant enemy awaiting her. It was Hornblower’s nature to discount his achievements to himself, to make no allowance for the careful precautions he had taken to ensure success, for his ingenuity in making the best of circumstances. He cursed himself for a reckless fool, and for his habit of plunging into danger and only counting the risk afterwards.

A rattle of cutlery and crockery in the cabin recalled him to himself, and he sat up and resumed his unmoved countenance just in time as Polwheal came out into the stern gallery.

“I’ve’ got you a mouthful to eat, sir,” he said. “You’ve had nought since yesterday.”

Hornblower suddenly knew that he was horribly hungry, and at the same time he realised that he had forgotten the coffee Polwheal had brought him, hours ago, to the quarterdeck. Presumably that had stayed there to grow cold until Polwheal fetched it away. With real pleasure he got up and walked into the cabin; so tempting was the prospect of food and drink that he felt hardly a twinge of irritation at having Polwheal thus fussing over him and trying to mother him and probably getting ready to make overmuch advantage of his position. The cold tongue was delicious, and Polwheal with uncanny intuition had put out a half bottle of claret—not one day a month did Hornblower drink anything stronger than water when by himself, yet today he drank three glasses of claret, knowing that he wanted them, and enjoying every drop.

And as the food and the wine strengthened him, and his fatigue dropped away, his mind began to busy itself with new plans, devising, without his conscious volition, fresh methods of harassing the enemy. As he drank his coffee the ideas began to stir within him, and yet he was not conscious of them. All he knew was the cabin was suddenly stuffy and cramped, and that he was yearning again for the fresh air and fierce sunshine outside. Polwheal, returning to clear the table, saw his captain through the stern windows pacing the gallery, and years of service under Hornblower had taught him to make the correct deductions from Hornblower’s bent, thoughtful head, and the hands which, although clasped behind him, yet twisted and turned one within the other as he worked out each prospective development.

In consequence of what Polwheal had to tell, the lower deck all knew that another move was imminent, fully two hours before Hornblower appeared on the quarterdeck and gave the orders which precipitated it.

“They’re shooting well, sir,” said Bush, as a fountain of water leaped suddenly and mysteriously into brief life a hundred yards from the port beam. “Who couldn’t shoot well with their advantages?” answered Gerard.

“Forty-two pounders, on permanent mounts fifty feet above the water, and soldiers to serve ‘em ten years in the ranks?”

“I’ve seen ‘em shoot worse, all the same,” said Crystal.

“It’s a mile an’ a half if it’s a yard,” said Bush.

“More than that,” said Crystal.

“A scant mile,” said Gerard.

“Nonsense,” said Bush.

Hornblower broke into their wrangling.

“Your attention, please, gentlemen. And I shall want Rayner and Hooker—pass the word, there, for Mr. Rayner and Mr. Hooker. Now, study the place with care.”

A dozen telescopes trained on Port Vendres, with the sunset reddening behind. In the background Mount Canigou stood out with a startling illusion of towering height; to the left the spurs of the Pyrenees ran clean down into the sea at Cape Cerbera, marking where Spain had ended and France began. In the centre the white houses of Port Vendres showed pink under the sunset, clustering round the head of the little bay. In front of them a vessel swung at anchor, under the protection of the batteries on either side of the bay which were marked by occasional puffs of smoke as the guns there tried repeatedly, at extremely long range, to hit the insolent ship which was flaunting British colours within sight of the Empire’s coasts.

“Mark that battery to the left, Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Mr. Rayner, you see the battery to the right—there goes a gun. Mark it well. I want no mistake made. Mr. Hooker, you see how the bay curves? You must be able to take a boat straight up to the ship there tonight.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Hooker, while the other officers exchanged glances.

“Put the ship upon the port tack, Mr. Bush. We must stand out to sea, now. These are your orders, gentlemen.”

Turning from one officer to another, Hornblower ran briefly through their instructions. The ship sheltering in Port Vendres was to be cut and taken that night as a climax to the twenty-four hours which had begun with the capture of the Amelie and continued with the storming of the battery at Llanza.

“The moon rises at one o’clock. I shall take care to be back in our present position here at midnight,” said Hornblower.

With good fortune, the garrison of Port Vendres might be lured into tranquillity by the sight of the Sutherland sailing away now, and she could return unobserved after nightfall. An hour of darkness would suffice to effect a surprise, and the rising moon would give sufficient light for the captured ship to be brought out if successful, and for the attackers to rally and escape if unsuccessful.